Category: Pop Culture

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Alien: Romulus

Alien Romulus Poster
Rating: 4
Storytelling🐷🐷🐷🐷
Characters🐷🐷🐷🐷
Acting🐷🐷🐷🐷
Drama, Baby!🐷🐷🐷
Fun🐷🐷🐷🐷
Humour🐷
Visuals🐷🐷🐷🐷🐷
Music and Sound🐷🐷🐷🐷🐷
Originality🐷🐷
Entertainment value🐷🐷🐷🐷🐷
Production value🐷🐷🐷🐷
Satisfaction🐷🐷🐷🐷
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Deadpool & Wolverine

Deadpool & Wolverine
Rating: 4
Storytelling🐷🐷🐷
Characters🐷🐷🐷
Drama, Baby!🐷🐷🐷
Fun🐷🐷🐷🐷🐷
Humour🐷🐷🐷🐷🐷
Visuals🐷🐷🐷
Originality🐷🐷🐷
Entertainment value🐷🐷🐷🐷🐷
Production value🐷🐷🐷🐷
Satisfaction🐷🐷🐷🐷
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Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

Rating: 4

Not just MAD – this movie is batshit CRAZY🤪
Maybe a bit long, though⏳

Storytelling🐷🐷🐷🐷
Characters🐷🐷🐷🐷
Acting🐷🐷🐷🐷
Drama, Baby!🐷🐷🐷🐷
Fun🐷🐷🐷🐷🐷
Humour🐷🐷🐷🐷
Visuals🐷🐷🐷🐷🐷
Music and Sound🐷🐷🐷🐷
Originality🐷🐷🐷🐷🐷
Entertainment value🐷🐷🐷🐷🐷
Production value🐷🐷🐷🐷🐷
Satisfaction🐷🐷🐷🐷
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The Fall Guy

Rating: 4
Storytelling🐷🐷🐷🐷
Characters🐷🐷🐷🐷
Acting🐷🐷🐷🐷🐷
Drama, Baby!🐷🐷🐷
Fun🐷🐷🐷🐷🐷
Humour🐷🐷🐷🐷
Visuals🐷🐷🐷🐷🐷
Music and Sound🐷🐷🐷🐷🐷
Originality🐷🐷🐷🐷
Entertainment value🐷🐷🐷🐷🐷
Production value🐷🐷🐷🐷🐷
Satisfaction🐷🐷🐷🐷
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Rafe New Favourites

Far too rarely am I asked about my favourite films and TV shows😉.

The short answer: Fight Club and Mr. Robot.

For anyone craving for more options , here’s my list of unmissable films and TV shows in chronological order:

Movies: 2000s

Movies: 1990s

  • Fight Club (1999)
  • Magnolia (1999)
  • Any Given Sunday (1999)
  • Being John Malkovich (1999)
  • The Sixth Sense (1999)
  • Dogma (1999)
  • American Beauty (1999)
  • The Matrix (1999)
  • Armageddon (1998)
  • American History X (1998)
  • Saving Private Ryan (1998)
  • City Of Angels (1998)
  • The Big Lebowski (1998)
  • L.A. Confidential (1997)
  • The Devil’s Advocate (1997)
  • Starship Troopers (1997)
  • Boogie Nights (1997)
  • Face/Off (1997)
  • Con Air (1997)
  • Contact (1997)
  • The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996)
  • From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)
  • Independence Day (1996)
  • The Rock (1996)
  • Heat (1995)
  • Leaving Las Vegas (1995)
  • The Usual Suspects (1995)
  • Se7en (1995)
  • 12 Monkeys (1995)
  • Mall Rats (1995)
  • Casino (1995)
  • True Lies (1994)
  • Glengarry Glen Ross (1992)
  • Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)
  • Reservoir Dogs (1992)
  • The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
  • Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
  • Goodfellas (1990)
  • The Hunt for Red October (1990)
  • Total Recall (1990)

Movies: 1980s

  • Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
  • The Abyss (1989)
  • When Harry Met Sally (1989)
  • Akira (1988)
  • Who framed Roger Rabbit (1988)
  • A Fish Called Wanda (1988)
  • Robocop (1987)
  • Predator (1987)
  • Labyrinth (1986)
  • Little Shop of Horrors (1986)
  • Back to the Future (1985)
  • Legend (1985)
  • The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984)
  • Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi (1983)
  • The Thing (1982)
  • Tron (1982)
  • Blade Runner (1982)
  • Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
  • The Shining (1980)
  • Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

Movies: 1970s and before

  • Apocalypse Now (1979)
  • Alien (1979)
  • Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (1977)
  • Rocky (1976)
  • The Great Escape (1963)
  • It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
  • Casablanca (1942)
  • Citizen Kane (1941)

TV Shows: All time

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Dune: Part Two

Rating: 5

As long as creators like Denis Villeneuve and Christopher Nolan continue to work their magic, there’s still hope for cinema.

Storytelling🐷🐷🐷🐷🐷
Characters🐷🐷🐷🐷🐷
Acting🐷🐷🐷🐷🐷
Drama, Baby!🐷🐷🐷🐷🐷
Fun🐷🐷🐷🐷🐷
Humour🐷🐷🐷
Visuals🐷🐷🐷🐷🐷
Music and Sound🐷🐷🐷🐷🐷
Originality🐷🐷🐷🐷
Entertainment value🐷🐷🐷🐷🐷
Production value🐷🐷🐷🐷🐷
Satisfaction🐷🐷🐷🐷🐷
Emperor Shaddam IV
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Bye-bye Blick

After 15 years as Infographic Designer and Web Developer, it’s time for me to leave Ringier and the Blick Newsroom behind.

April first, 2024, I will start a new chapter in my professional life as a healthcare Data Manager.

But it wouldn’t be much of a sendoff without some sort of visual representation, would it? That’s why I’ve created this faux comic book cover to commemorate the historic transition.

«The Data Manager»

As it turns out, AI did most of the work. Artificial Intelligence, not AL, that is.

The cover is – obviously – a pastiche of the iconic panel in the «Spider-Man, no more» storyline originally published in Amazing Spider-Man Vol 1 #50 in 1967:

Panel from The Amazing Spider-Man #50, Marvel Comics 1967

My gratitude goes to all my colleagues for sharing countless moments of triumph and struggle, tears and excitement, frustration and joy, insight and challenge, and above all, laughter in my far too many years in the newsroom. I wish you all the best.

Addendum

Probably my last entry on the Blick homepage in my last week: The tried and tested Lottery-Winnings-Calculator:

Screenshot blick.ch (2024-02-28)
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Aurora – Special Edition

Inspired by Adobe Photoshop’s new generative AI capabilities, I gave my SAE thesis project back from 2007 the «Special Edition» treatment and made some minor changes I wasn’t able do the first time around when I was attending the digital film and animation school.

Especially one scene at the end never was as bombastic as I’d planned it to be. After some upscaling and with the help of some generative AI-magic the frame was extended and new details were added.

For dramatic effect I tried to generate some smoke-simulation in Blender but I was quickly reminded of the fact that one doesn’t just start up a 3D-software after years of absence without browsing through a handful of tutorials.

After hours of struggling and rendering, the first results were less than underwhelming and I went the old-school FX way of simulating smoke: Capturing footage of some milk dripped in water did the job just fine. When I cropped, enhanced and flipped some of the footage I had taken inside my kitchen cupboard earlier, there was no going back to Blender – for now.

Making of the smoke clouds

It’s been 16 years since the original version of Aurora – a fictitious trailer, my very own homage to high concept disaster movies à la Independence Day but it hasn’t lost an ounce of its soul, enthusiasm and – admittedly – cringiness:

I give you: Aurora – Special Edition:

Aurora – Special Edition

Maybe the next version will finally get its own soundtrack without all the copyright issues…

In the meantime, here’s the original version and some bonus content:

The original version from 2007
Some outtakes for good measure
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Moogerly

Exploring the movie universe through graphs

After more than a year of planning, research, and development, I’m excited to share my newest app: Moogerly.com.

The Moogerly platform is aimed at fans of cinema, data, and visualization, allowing them to explore the movie universe through interactive graphs. It provides a unique way to visualize your favorite titles, cast, and crew, and shows how they fit into the interconnected world of film, TV shows, and trivia.

With its continually evolving features, Moogerly is an exciting platform for movie enthusiasts to dive into the world of cinema and TV. The website offers a growing range of predefined sets to browse through. You can also create your own sets by selecting movies and persons of your choice.

Moogerly is a personal project created by the maker of rafenew.world, who aims to bring together data, design, and storytelling while learning new things and improving his skills.

The website’s user-friendly interface allows you to navigate through various predefined sets or create your own visualizations. Whether you’re interested in exploring the filmography of your favorite actor or tracing the connections between different movies, Moogerly provides an engaging experience for movie lovers.

Moogerly utilizes data and technology from «The Movie Database» (TMDB). This ensures that you have access to accurate and up-to-date information about movies, cast members, crew details, and more. The website is continually being developed to enhance its features and provide an immersive experience for users.

Join Moogerly‘s growing community of movie enthusiasts and embark on a journey through the fascinating world of cinema. Start exploring today at www.moogerly.com.

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Oppenheimer

Rating: 4
Storytelling🐷🐷🐷🐷
Characters🐷🐷🐷🐷🐷
Acting🐷🐷🐷🐷🐷
Drama, Baby!🐷🐷🐷🐷
Fun🐷🐷🐷
Humour🐷
Visuals🐷🐷🐷🐷🐷
Music and Sound🐷🐷🐷🐷🐷
Originality🐷🐷🐷🐷🐷
Entertainment value🐷🐷🐷🐷
Production value🐷🐷🐷🐷🐷
Satisfaction🐷🐷🐷🐷